Tag Archives: crown

Kate Clements is artist whose primary focus is kiln-fired glass. These delicate icicly glass crowns are representative of many things: power, decadence, excess, and decorum, but the fragility of their forms undermine the seeming permanence of this status symbol. There’s something fanastical and menacing about these glass sculptures. The mythological associations one encounters upon regarding these crowns inspires a sense of wonder and magic, the consequences of which our old fairy tales can never seem to stop reminding us. Of her work, Clements says:

“I construct decorative, non-functional glass headdresses to initiate a new conversation about narcissistic female adornment. Throughout history the cultural construction of feminine identity has contributed to a persistent desire by women to transcend what nature has given them physically. I believe these gestures of transformation are made selfishly and with pleasure, in hopes to achieve a fantasy. The glass headdresses function as a separation between viewer and ‘wearer.’ This distance enables the ‘wearer’ to be transformed into the fantastical creature; however, this distance is only a counterfeit perfection.

I am interested in women’s attempts to fit popular cultural representation and how often this results in a suspension of their critical self-awareness. How women’s efforts to fulfill these representations can lead to feelings of guilt and the simultaneous assertion of individual power and the creation of a ‘feminine mystique.’ Finally I am interested in the adornments of the celebration of the ‘perfect’ woman. These celebrations can include beauty queens, exotic dancers, and ironically in it’s most extreme manifestation: the bride. ” (via my amp goes to 11)